


In This World

by thedeadparrot



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, Travel, alien planets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-12
Updated: 2009-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-02 04:31:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedeadparrot/pseuds/thedeadparrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new day, a new wonder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In This World

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short slice-of-life piece. Takes place sometime between 'The Lazarus Experiment' and 'Human Nature'.

"Come on!" the Doctor says, hopping a bit as he runs up the hill.

Too much energy, he has, and Martha is scrambling to keep up, trying not to slip on the rocky terrain. "What're we doing here?" she asks him. He hasn't said anything about this place, this planet, just that she'd love it, that she should trust him. Martha trusts him, trusts him enough to follow him blindly, but if she can, she'd rather not do it blindly, thank you very much. She likes it better when she knows where she's going.

"You'll see when we get there," the Doctor replies cheerfully, still brimming with that too-giddy energy. "Come on!" He's at the top now, bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting for her to catch up. Martha rolls her eyes, because he may be old, older than she can imagine (or not, because he's never said), there are times when he reminds her of Leo when he was twelve and impatient, and she was fourteen and wise.

And then she's at the top with him, looking out, and there's a forest, a huge forest with blue and purple leaves, glowing in the red sun, their orange branches swaying in the cool breeze. It stretches far into the mountains, all the way out until it disappears on the horizon. A cry breaks out, and a group of flying creatures that look a little like bats spread their huge white wings and take off, rising up into the pink sky. The sound of chittering fills the air, the sound of creatures that Martha's never seen or heard of before, and this world feels _alive_, right there, right in front of them.

"It's amazing," Martha says, breathing it all in, and it smells musky and fresh, like new rain and wet dirt. (She'd grown up in the city, yeah, but she'd had a few summers out in the country with her aunt and uncle, where there were these huge, wide open fields that they would play in after it stormed, her and Leo and Tish.)

The Doctor grins beside her, pleased at her awe, and Martha remembers how it felt to fall in love with him and thinks that maybe falling in love with him was just an extension of falling in love with all of time and space, because seeing this feels like that all over again. Her breath taken away by the grand beauty of it all. He starts talking, that haphazard, too-fast way of his. "Now will you look at that. The Great Forest of Zakara, just in time for the season charge. See, normally, those leaves are yellow, not particularly exciting, but when autumn comes 'round -- like now, for instance -- they turn all sorts of colors depending on their mood -- I like them best when they're fuschia. Autumn's also when the seeds grow legs and find some place to plant themselves. Quite a sight, that. All those seeds running around, crashing into each other. They haven't got eyes, you know. Not for another couple million years, at least."

Martha laughs with delight, because just _thinking_ about it, the beautiful alien-ness of this world, fills her up until she could burst from it. She can just imagine the little seeds with legs, or maybe fruit with legs, a pear scurrying about and then digging up its final resting place, and she wants to know more. How'd they evolve legs? Is it all the species of plants or just these particular trees? Are they sentient? Can they communicate? So many questions, flitting about in her head, but she can ask them later. "I'll never get tired of this," she says instead, because even as she knows that one day, she'll want to go back, finish her exams, get on with her life, she knows that right now, this is what she wants. This is where she wants to be.

There's a shadow that passes over the Doctor's face as she says it, just a split second, as if he's thinking the same thing, but then it passes, his face brightening again, his smile wide and genuine. "Come on!" he says, holding out a hand. "There's more to see!"

Martha takes it, laughing again as she lets him pull her along behind him, half-falling, half-running down the other side of the hill towards the blue-purple-orange trees, full of the sounds of unfamiliar insects and the smell of fresh earth, so far away from home.

 

FIN.


End file.
